Resolution criteria
Follows the identical Polymarket resolution (https://polymarket.com/event/hantavirus-pandemic-in-2026). This market will resolve to "Yes" if the World Health Organization explicitly characterizes Hantavirus, Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS), Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome (HFRS), or a Hantavirus-related outbreak as a "pandemic" in an official public communication between market creation and December 31, 2026, 11:59 PM ET. Otherwise, this market will resolve to "No".
An explicit characterization includes official WHO statements, reports, press briefings, or publications that clearly describe the outbreak as a "pandemic." A Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) alone will not qualify unless it is also described as a pandemic.
The primary resolution source for this market will be official WHO communications. A consensus of credible reporting may also be used.
Background
Hantaviruses are a family of viruses spread mainly by rodents. In humans, they can cause Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS) and Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome (HFRS). While Hantaviruses can cause severe, life-threatening disease, transmission is typically through contact with infected rodent excreta, not via human-to-human transmission. Historically, human-to-human transmission of Hantavirus is extremely rare, making the potential for a global pandemic fundamentally different from respiratory viruses like influenza or SARS-CoV-2.
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@traders Thanks for your activity on this question :D It's been super interesting to see the delta between here and Polymarket. If you're interested, I've opened another parity market for a Hantavirus Vaccine in 2026 here: https://manifold.markets/bagofsprite/will-a-hantavirus-vaccine-be-create
Also, if anyone is able to provide additional liquidity on either question I'd really appreciate it. Good luck!
Does anybody actually think the chance of this becoming a pandemic is 1 in 20?!
I saw a market here the other day that said “don’t trade unless you’re a cybersecurity expert” and I thought that was stupid, until I saw this market and now I think I understand the problem of what non-experts think the chance of something happening truly is. I guess I’ve fallen for the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect 🙃
The chance of each years flu strain becoming a pandemic is significantly higher than this disease becoming a pandemic, but I don’t see manifold/polymarket being whipped up into a frenzy every November. It’s just a case of shiny new thing being exciting.
Why not bet this down, you ask? Well, spending all my mana barely moves the %: I cannot afford it, the gains would be absolutely tiny even if I could, and it would lock all my mana up until Dec for basically no return when I could make better bets in the meantime.
Why not bet this down, you ask? Well, spending all my mana barely moves the %: I cannot afford it, the gains would be absolutely tiny even if I could, and it would lock all my mana up until Dec for basically no return when I could make better bets in the meantime.
Thus is the structural reason prediction markets in general have trouble with low probability events. Also, very small number of YES bettors can keep the probability>1% with very littlemana. Nothing special about the topic.
@jgyou I pulled all of the traders' data at about 9:32am ET. This is the final result:
Conditional formatting is a heatmap bound to the borders around them. Each user in this market has a all-time profit value associated with them, and I mean'd and median'd them. I think the League data is the most interesting here.
@JussiVilleHeiskanen In principle, but I don't really buy Manifold's Sharpe ratio, because I'm not sure one can really get a good "risk-free rate" time series.
@Quroe Bronze doesn't mean bad. it just means new (on average they're at best unpracticed, but every sharp and insider starts there!)
@Stralor I'm looking at those mean and median lifetime profits and that's a bit more indicative to me
@Stralor I'm not sure how I want to interpret that. I didn't exactly have a null hypothesis walking into making that chart, so I can't claim I'm making any real claims with that data. Although, it might inspire a future null hypothesis.
Maybe I was too drawn in by the pretty colors. Monkey brain likes images over numbers.
@McLovin Insider trading by members of Bhattacharya's CDC who plan to sabotage any reasonable response by the US to a possible transmission happening within their borders (only half joking).
@McLovin If you think the probability is lower, it sounds like you're saying there is an edge that hasn't been exploited yet. Free money is up for grabs!
@Quroe you meant to say "higher"? 'cause, like, it seems that I'm the only one here who ain't totally sure that it's actually much lower in reality, than on Polymarket.
@McLovin My directionality was referencing the 1-2% call out above. Maybe I am misinterpreting what that meant.
Regardless, if it's mispriced, change it!
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@bens so, 4-5% here is sort of accurate then, right? I mean, there's only 7.5 months left 'til the market's final date..
@McLovin How much, and at what rate, do you think people are willing to pay for insurance to hedge against a world-halting pandemic again?
How much, and at what rate, would people be willing to sell that insurance for?